September Birds

I recently purchased a new camera - the Nikon 1 V1 10.1 MP Camera with 10-30mm VR and 30-110mm VR 1 NIKKOR Lenses along with the Nikon FT-1 F-Mount Adapter which allows me to use all of my DSLR lenses on this new camera body.  The big advantage here is that the Nikon V1 camera has a "CX" sensor which is considerably smaller than the sensors on the DSLR, but provides a 2.7X crop factor.  What does all of that mean?  Basically, my 300mm lens becomes a 800mm lens, and my 300mm + 1.7X TC becomes a 1,375mm lens (when compared to 35mm equivalent) giving me a big advantage at a much smaller price than buying a massive new lens.   I also have the advantage of hooking up a smaller lens, such as my 105mm f/2.8 macro lens to this camera which makes it nearly a 300mm f/2.8 macro while letting me also carry my standard camera with 300mm + 1.7X converter.  A nice combo to be walking around with!

All of the above means that I can get more up-close photos of birds without being so, well, up-close.  The first bird I wanted to test this out on was the American Kestrel who has taunted me for years by always being just out of reach.  Maybe now my fortunes would change, but as I found out yesterday (saturday) the wind worked against me keeping me from approaching the 20+ kestrels at EPCAL.
Today, the winds were light - but that meant the runway featuring the most birds (the eastern runway) was being used for skydiving so I wouldn't have access to these birds and was forced to stay on the western runway where the birds were few and far between.  I did find a pair of savannah sparrows though who let me try out the new system.

After the sparrows, I searched around some more and couldn't find anything.  I left to get gas and figured I'd drive through the property on my way to Dune Road when I spotted an American Kestrel that looked as though it may be cooperative.  I was able to photograph the Kestrel as it approached a grasshopper, plucked it up and enjoyed its meal on some mullein.  I still would have liked to have been a lot closer, and being completely unfamiliar with the camera led to some not-so-perfect images, but certainly better than anything I've gotten before of a Kestrel at EPCAL which means there are a lot of great shots to come!

I wasn't completely shutout yesterday, however.  I did find a green frog and a pickerel frog, which is a species I'd never seen/photographed before.

If you are interested in the Nikon V1 system - check it out for yourself:

Alley Pond Park

This morning I headed to Alley Pond Park in Queens for the first time since i had to be in that area anyway for Mother's day festivities.  I got to the park at around 6:45 AM and wandered past the ponds and along the trails until 9 AM.  While I was not as successful as I was hoping (mostly due to the significant leaf coverage and my inability to ID warbler calls) I photographed a few new species and had a nice morning hike.

The first new species I came across was the Red-eyed Vireo (below) which was at about eye level on a trail that unfortunately was not being touched by the sun yet which made for a slow shutter speed and noisy, not-so-sharp image.

The next bird I got nice looks at was the ubiquitous Yellow Warbler which posed nicely but was nothing terribly captivating.

Shortly after leaving the Yellow Warbler I was stopped in my tracks by the buzzing song of the Northern Parula (though I admit I had to ask a birder later on what species I'd photographed).  The Parula, it turned out, was right in front of me - a little lower than eye level actively calling out.  Again the lighting was awful and the images I got were not ideal but good for a new species.

I heard several species of Warbler - Tennessee and Canada to name two.  A few Thrushes dotted the trails and were wary of me and Baltimore Orioles were busy squabbling with one another.  As I made my way out of the forest and back toward the parking lot I saw a flash of color above me.  A female American Redstart wouldn't cooperate, so I was stuck with this:

For those of you interested in how I get my photos from my camera to the web, I import them using Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom where I can easily process them and catalog them.  Check it out here:

Manorville Birds

Yellow Warbler

This morning I had to conduct a site visit at a defunct nursery which will soon be a new subdivision.  I enjoy this part of my job as I'm often one of the last people to see a property in it's "natural state" before it's developed.  It's bittersweet of course, but still nice.  In this case, 1/2 of the property will be given to the Town for Open Space so it's not a total loss.

Chipping Sparrows

During my inspection I saw a decent variety of birds.  Yellow Warblers (including some with nesting material), Orchard Orioles, Chipping Sparrows, Song Sparrows, House Finches and others.  Here are a few photos from this morning.

Pair of House Finches

Yellow Warbler with Nesting material

I photographed these birds with my Nikon D300s which you can check out here: